But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
There is a German word, Sehnsucht, which has no English equivalent; it means 'the longing for something'. It has Romantic and mystical… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Loving humanity means as much, and as little, as loving raindrops, or loving the Milky Way. You say that you love humanity?… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you were the child of a happy marriage, then you ought to have a better… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“There is only good vodka and very good vodka—there is no such thing as bad vodka.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Also, when you are young, you think you can predict the likely pains and bleaknesses that age might bring. You imagine yourself being lonely,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Why slum it where people were burdened by yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? By history? Here, on the Island,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods--the long-distance phone… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
